An electronic survey of Control Design readers was conducted in December 2013 in order to identify usage and application trends of sensors and vision among the industrial machine builders that comprise Control Design's readership.

72% of respondents indicated they use process variable sensors, 67% use rotary encoder/resolver, nearly 64% use photoelectric, 59% use inductive proximity, 47.5% use vision, 37.7% use linear position and a further 37.7% use capacitive proximity, 26.2% use optical laser, 16.4% use ultrasonic proximity, 14.8% use vibration/condition monitoring and 13.1% use color.